System, method and computer program product for publishing an application-independent format event

ABSTRACT

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for publishing an application-independent format event. These mechanisms and methods for publishing an application-independent format event can enable optimized data communication, improved scalability, increased operational efficiency, etc.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication 61/375,418, entitled “Methods and Systems for Event-BasedLoosely Coupled Integration of Cloud Computing Applications,” by SriVidya Annapragada, filed Aug. 20, 2010, the entire contents of which areincorporated herein by reference.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

One or more implementations relate generally to system integration, andmore particularly to integrating distributed systems.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not beassumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in thebackground section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the backgroundsection or associated with the subject matter of the background sectionshould not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the priorart. The subject matter in the background section merely representsdifferent approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.

Many modern business processes involve interactions between multipleapplications and information sources. For example, a business processmay interact with multiple cloud-based and on-premise applications andinformation sources. Unfortunately, techniques for enablingcommunication between such applications and information sources havebeen associated with various limitations.

Just by way of example, traditional methods of integration betweenmultiple applications and information sources may not ensure real-timeinformation exchange and may not support an exponential growth ofsystems, data, etc. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide techniquesthat improve the integration of distributed systems.

BRIEF SUMMARY

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms andmethods for publishing an application-independent format event. Thesemechanisms and methods for publishing an application-independent formatevent can enable optimized data communication, improved scalability,increased operational efficiency, etc.

In an embodiment and by way of example, a method for publishing anapplication-independent format event is provided. In one embodiment, anevent associated with a first application is identified. Additionally,the event is converted into an application-independent format event.Further, the application-independent format event is published.

While one or more implementations and techniques are described withreference to an embodiment in which publishing anapplication-independent format event is implemented in a system havingan application server providing a front end for an on-demand databasesystem capable of supporting multiple tenants, the one or moreimplementations and techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databasesnor deployment on application servers. Embodiments may be practicedusing other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and thelike without departing from the scope of the embodiments claimed.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with oneanother in any combination. The one or more implementations encompassedwithin this specification may also include embodiments that are onlypartially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to atall in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although variousembodiments may have been motivated by various deficiencies with theprior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places inthe specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any ofthese deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may addressdifferent deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Someembodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just onedeficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and someembodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following drawings like reference numbers are used to refer tolike elements. Although the following figures depict various examples,the one or more implementations are not limited to the examples depictedin the figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates a method for publishing an application-Independentformat event, in accordance with one embodiment;

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary event-based loosely coupled integrationsystem, in accordance with another embodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an example of an environmentwherein an on-demand database system might be used; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of elements of FIG.4 and various possible interconnections between these elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

General Overview

Systems and methods are pr vided for publishing anapplication-independent format event.

As used herein, the term multi-tenant database system refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and software of thedatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers.

Next, mechanisms and methods for publishing an application-independentformat event will be described with reference to example embodiments.

FIG. 1 illustrates a method 100 for publishing anapplication-independent format event, in accordance with one embodiment.As shown in operation 102, an event associated with a first applicationis identified. In one embodiment, the event may be associated with anaction performed by the first application. For example, the event mayinclude a notification that the first application performed a particularaction. In another embodiment, the event may include one or more detailsof the action performed by the first application. For example, the eventmay include a summary of the action performed by the application. In yetanother embodiment, the event may include data associated with theaction performed by the first application. For example, the event mayinclude data that has been altered, updated, deleted, etc. by the firstapplication. In another embodiment, the event may be formatted as amessage.

Additionally, in one embodiment, an application (e.g., the firstapplication, etc.) may include any program capable of performing one ormore actions on data. For example, the application may include adirectory application, a calendar application, a word processingapplication, etc. another embodiment, the application may be associatedwith a multi-tenant on-demand database system. For example, theapplication may be included within (and may be managed by) amulti-tenant on-demand database system. In another example, theapplication may include a cloud-based application (e.g., an applicationsupported by (and operable within) a cloud computing environment, etc.).In another example, the application may include an on-premiseapplication. For instance, the application may include an applicationinstalled within a server, a personal computer, a mobile computingdevice, etc.

Additionally, it should be noted that, as described above, suchmulti-tenant on-demand database system may include any service thatrelies on a database system that is accessible over a network, in whichvarious elements of hardware and software of the database system may beshared by one or more customers (e.g. tenants). For instance, a givenapplication server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers. Various examples of such amulti-tenant on-demand database system will be set forth in the contextof different embodiments that will be described during reference tosubsequent figures.

Further, as shown in operation 104, the event is converted into anapplication-independent format event. In one embodiment, the event mayinitially be in an application-specific format, and converting the eventmay include altering one or more application-specific portions of theevent. For example, application-specific portions of the event mayinclude one or more portions of the event that that are specific to thefirst application. For example, the application-specific portions of theevent may include one or more of the contents of the event, a data typeof the event, one or more details of the event, etc.

Further still, in one embodiment, converting the event may includechanging one or more application-specific portions of the event to beapplication-independent (e.g., not specific to a particular application,etc.). For example, one or more portions of the event that areidentified and utilized by a particular application or subset ofapplications may be converted such that they may be identified andutilized by a larger number of applications (e.g., all applicationssupported by a multi-tenant on-demand database system, etc.). Also, inanother embodiment, the event may be converted by a particular entity.For example, a listener (e.g., a notification listener, etc.) mayperform both the identifying of the event and the converting of theevent to the application-independent format.

Also, as shown in operation 106, the application-independent formatevent is published. In one embodiment, the application-independentformat event may be published utilizing a bus. For example, theapplication-independent format event may be broadcast on or otherwisetransmitted to a bus. In another example, the bus may include any typeof communications bus by which data is made available to a plurality ofentities. For example, the bus may include a message bus, a datatransfer bus, a notification bus, an enterprise service bus, etc.

In addition, in one embodiment, a plurality of subscribers may beassociated with the bus. In another embodiment, the plurality ofsubscribers may include one or more applications within the multi-tenanton-demand database system. For example, the plurality of subscribers mayinclude the first application as well as a plurality of additionalapplications other than the first application. In another example, theplurality of subscribers may include one or more entities situatedbetween (and separate from) the bus and one or more applications thatmanage the transfer of events between the bus and the applications.

Further, in one embodiment, the plurality of subscribers may be incommunication with the bus. For example, one or more of the plurality ofsubscribers may listen to the bus (e.g., in order to detect eventspublished to the bus, etc.). In another embodiment, one or moresubscribers listening to the bus may retrieve the publishedapplication-independent format event. For example, one or more of thesubscribers may detect the published event and may consume the event byregistering with the bus. In yet another embodiment, the bus may filterone or more events and may only deliver events to one or morepredetermined subscribers.

Further, in one embodiment, the published application-independent formatevent may be retrieved by one or more of the subscribers by sending theevent to the subscribers from the bus. In another embodiment, one ormore of the subscribers may retrieve the publishedapplication-independent format event and may forward the event on toanother entity (e.g., another application other than the firstapplication, etc.). In another embodiment, the publishedapplication-independent format event may be converted from itsapplication-independent format to a format specific to an applicationother than the first application when the event is retrieved. Forexample, the published application-independent format event may beconverted into a format understandable by an application that isintended to receive the event (e.g., an application other than the firstapplication, etc.). In yet another embodiment, the publishedapplication-independent format event may be converted by the subscriberthat retrieves the event, by the bus, etc.

Further still, in one embodiment, the retrieved and converted event maybe forwarded on to another entity. For example, the retrieved event maybe converted to a format associated with (e.g., understandable by) adestination application by the one or more subscribers and may beforwarded on to the destination application by the one or moresubscribers. In another embodiment, the retrieved and converted eventmay be processed by the destination application. For example, thedestination application may incorporate one or more changes described inthe event into the destination application. In this way, applicationsmay communicate events via the bus in real time. Additionally, the busmay provide service virtualization that may provide a loosely coupledintegration between applications.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary event-based loosely coupled integrationsystem 200, in accordance with another embodiment. As an option, thepresent system 200 may be carried out in the context of thefunctionality of FIG. 1. Of course, however, the system 200 may becarried out in any desired environment. The aforementioned definitionsmay apply during the present description.

As shown, the integration system 200 includes cloud-based applications202A and 202B, as well as on-premise applications 204A and 204B.Additionally, cloud-based application 202A is a source of truth for arecord (e.g., an employee record, a financial record, a customer record,etc.). For example, when a change is detected in the record at thecloud-based application 202A, an event 206 (e.g., an outbound event,etc.) is triggered. Additionally, the cloud-based application 202A sendsthe event 206 to a message authentication module 208, where the event isauthenticated and forwarded on to a notification listener 210. In oneembodiment, the notification listener 210 may be configured in anintegration layer of the system 200.

Further, the notification listener 210 converts the event 206 from thecloud-based application 202A to an application-independent format.Further still, the notification listener 210 publishes theapplication-independent format event to a bus 212 (e.g., an enterpriseservice bus, etc.). Also, event subscribers 214A and 214B associatedwith the cloud-based applications 202A and 202B, respectively, listen tothe events published on the bus 212. In one embodiment, the bus 212 maybe configured to filter the events and deliver them only to relevantsubscribers. For example, applications and their relative subscribersmay consume an event they are interested in by registering with the bus211.

In addition, the event subscribers 214A and 214B consume (e.g.,retrieve, etc.) the application-independent format event from the bus212. In one embodiment, the event subscribers 214A and 214B maytransform the application-independent format event into anapplication-understandable format event. For example, the eventsubscribers 214A and 214B may transform the application-independentformat event into a format understandable by cloud-based applications202A and 202B, respectively.

Further, the event subscribers 214A and 214B then send theapplication-understandable format event to their respective cloud-basedapplications 202A and 202B. In one embodiment, the cloud-basedapplications 202A and 202B may then process theapplication-understandable format event. For example, the cloud-basedapplications 202A and 202B may incorporate changes described in theapplication-understandable format event into their applicationinfrastructure. In another embodiment, message sharing between thecloud-based applications 202A and 202B and the on-premise applications204A and 204B may occur via events published by the bus 212.

In this way, applications may communicate and interact in real time,thereby increasing operational efficiency. Additionally, integration maybe loosely coupled using service virtualization. Further, integrationmay be event-based by using events which may allow for real-timesynchronization of data among systems. Further still, loosely coupledintegration may help reduce the impact on an integration ecosystem(e.g., when applications undergo updates, when new applications areadded, etc.). This combination of event-based operation and looselycoupled design may provide a complete solution for integratingdistributed systems, and may support an exponential growth of systemsand data.

System Overview

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an environment 310 wherein anon-demand database system might be used. Environment 310 may includeuser systems 312, network 314, system 316, processor system 317,application platform 318, network interface 320, tenant data storage322, system data storage 324, program code 326, and process space 328.In other embodiments, environment 310 may not have all of the componentslisted and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to,those listed above.

Environment 310 is an environment in which an on-demand database systemexists. User system 312 may be any machine or system that is used by auser to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems312 can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptopcomputer, a work station, and/or a network of computing devices. Asillustrated in FIG. 3 (and in more detail in FIG. 4) user systems 312might interact via a network 314 with an on-demand database system,which is system 316.

An on-demand database system, such as system 316, is a database systemthat is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarilybe concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, hutinstead may be available for their use when the users need the databasesystem (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand databasesystems may store information from one or more tenants stored intotables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system(MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database system 316” and “system 316”will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one ormore database objects. A relational database management system (RDMS) orthe equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information againstthe database object(s). Application platform 318 may be a framework thatallows the applications of system 316 to run, such as the hardwareand/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an embodiment, on-demanddatabase system 316 may include an application platform 318 that enablescreation, managing and executing one or more applications developed bythe provider of the on-demand database system, users accessing theon-demand database system via user systems 312, or third partyapplication developers accessing the on-demand database system via usersystems 312.

The users of user systems 312 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 312 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 312 tointeract with system 316, that user system has the capacities allottedto that salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 316, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level.

Network 314 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 314 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred toas the “Internet” with a capital “I,” that network will be used in manyof the examples herein. However, it should be understood that thenetworks that the one or more implementations might use are not solimited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

User systems 312 might communicate with system 316 using TCP/IP and, ata higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 312 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from anHTTP server at system 316. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface between system 316 and network 314, but othertechniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations,the interface between system 316 and network 314 includes load sharingfunctionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balanceloads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality ofservers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, eachof the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data however, otheralternative configurations may be used instead.

In one embodiment, system 316, shown in FIG. 3, implements a web-basedcustomer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in oneembodiment, system 316 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and fromuser systems 312 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of onetenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that onetenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such datais expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system 316 implementsapplications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. Forexample, system 316 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted(standard and custom) applications, including a CRM application. User(or third party developer) applications, which may or may not includeCRM, may be supported by the application platform 318, which managescreation, storage of the applications into one or more database objectsand executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the processspace of the system 316.

One arrangement for elements of system 316 is shown in FIG. 3, includinga network interface 320, application platform 318, tenant data storage322 for tenant data 323, system data storage 324 for system data 325accessible to system 316 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 326for implementing various functions of system 316, and a process space328 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes,such as running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 316 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 3 include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 312 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. User system 312 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., abrowsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 312 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 316 over network 314. Each usersystem 312 also typically includes one or more user interface devices,such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen orthe like, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) providedby the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.)in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other informationprovided by system 316 or other systems or servers. For example, theuser interface device can be used to access data and applications hostedby system 316, and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwiseallow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented toa user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitable for use with theInternet, which refers to a specific global internetwork of networks.However, it should be understood that other networks can be used insteadof the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual privatenetwork (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one embodiment, each user system 312 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 316(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as processor system 317, which may include an Intel Pentium®processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. A computerprogram product embodiment includes a machine-readable storage medium(media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be used toprogram a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodimentsdescribed herein. Computer code for operating and configuring system 316to intercommunicate and to process webpages, applications and other dataand media content as described herein are preferably downloaded andstored on a hard disk, hut the entire program code, or portions thereof,may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory mediumor device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on anymedia capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotatingmedia including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk(DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, andmagnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs),or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/ordata. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may betransmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmissionmedium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is wellknown, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection asis well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communicationmedium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as arewell known. It will also be appreciated that computer code forimplementing embodiments can be implemented in any programming languagethat can be executed on a client system and/or server or server systemsuch as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™,JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, andmany other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to one embodiment, each system 316 is configured to providewebpages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client)systems 312 to support the access by user systems 312 as tenants ofsystem 316. As such, system 316 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant toinclude a computer system, including processing hardware and processspace(s), and an associated storage system and database application(e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also beunderstood that “server system” and “server” are often usedinterchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described hereincan be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 4 also illustrates environment 310. However, in FIG. 4 elements ofsystem 316 and various interconnections in an embodiment are furtherillustrated. FIG. 4 shows that user system 312 may include processorsystem 312A, memory system 31213, input system 312C, and output system312D. FIG. 4 shows network 314 and system 316. FIG. 4 also shows thatsystem 316 may include tenant data storage 322, tenant data 323, systemdata storage 324, system data 325, User Interface (UI) 430, ApplicationProgram interface (API) 432, PL/SOQL 434, save routines 436, applicationsetup mechanism 438, applications servers 400 ₁-400 _(N), system processspace 402, tenant process spaces 404, tenant management process space410, tenant storage area 412, user storage 414, and application metadata416. In other embodiments, environment 310 may not have the sameelements as those listed above and/or may have other elements insteadof, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 312, network 314, system 316, tenant data storage 322, andsystem data storage 324 were discussed above in FIG. 3. Regarding usersystem 312, processor system 312A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 312B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 312Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 312D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 4, system 316 may include a network interface 320 (of FIG. 3)implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 400, an applicationplatform 318, tenant data storage 322, and system data storage 324. Alsoshown is system process space 402, including individual tenant processspaces 404 and a tenant management process space 410. Each applicationserver 400 may be configured to tenant data storage 322 and the tenantdata 323 therein, and system data storage 324 and the system data 325therein to serve requests of user systems 312. The tenant data 323 mightbe divided into individual tenant storage areas 412, which can be eithera physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within eachtenant storage area 412, user storage 414 and application metadata 416might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of auser's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage414. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage area 412. A UI 430 provides auser interface and an API 432 provides an application programmerinterface to system 316 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 312. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as one or more Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 318 includes an application setup mechanism 438that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage322 by save routines 436 for execution by subscribers as one or moretenant process spaces 404 managed by tenant management process 410 forexample. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 434that provides a programming language style interface extension to API432. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments isdiscussed in commonly owned co-pending U.S. Provisional PatentApplication 60/828,192 entitled, PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE METHOD AND SYSTEMFOR EXTENDING APIS TO EXECUTE IN CONJUNCTION WITH DATABASE APIS, byCraig Weissman, filed Oct. 4, 2006, which is incorporated in itsentirety herein for all purposes. Invocations to applications may bedetected by one or more system processes, which manages retrievingapplication metadata 416 for the subscriber making the invocation andexecuting the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 400 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 325 and tenant data 323, viaa different network connection. For example, one application server 400₁ might be coupled via the network 314 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 400 _(N-1) might be coupled via a direct networklink, and another application server 400 _(N) might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 400 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain embodiments, each application server 400 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 400. In one embodiment, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 400 and the user systems 312 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 400. In one embodiment, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 400. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user couldhit three different application servers 400, and three requests fromdifferent users could hit the same application server 400. In thismanner, system 316 is multi-tenant, wherein system 316 handles storageof, and access to, different objects, data and applications acrossdisparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 316 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 322). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 316 that are allocatedat the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant specific data, system 316 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain embodiments, user systems 312 (which may be client systems)communicate with application servers 400 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 316 that may requiresending one or more queries to tenant data storage 322 and/or systemdata storage 324. System 316 (e.g., an application server 400 in system316) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one ormore SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information.System data storage 324 may generate query plans to access the requesteddata from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be usedinterchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more datacategories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema.Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for eachcategory defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may includea table that describes a customer with fields for basic contactinformation such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc.Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields forinformation such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In somemulti-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be providedfor use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standardentities might include tables for Account, Contact, Lead, andOpportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should beunderstood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeablyherein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/817,161, filed Apr. 2, 2004, entitled “Custom Entities and Fields ina Multi-Tenant Database System”, and which is hereby incorporated hereinby reference, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects aswell as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system.In certain embodiments, for example, all custom entity data rows arestored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may containmultiple logical tables per organization. It is transparent to customersthat their multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table orthat their data may be stored in the same table as the data of othercustomers.

While one or more implementations have been described by way of exampleand in terms of the specific embodiments, it is to be understood thatone or more implementations are not limited to the disclosedembodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover variousmodifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims shouldbe accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all suchmodifications and similar arrangements.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A computer program product embodied on amachine-readable storage medium, comprising: computer code foridentifying an event associated with a first application, where theevent includes a notification that the first application performed aparticular action; computer code for converting the event into anapplication-independent format event; and computer code for publishingthe application-independent format event; wherein the computer programproduct is operable such that the application-independent format eventis converted to a format associated with a destination application andis forwarded on to a destination application, where theapplication-independent format event describes changes to be made to anapplication infrastructure, and where the destination applicationincorporates the described changes into an infrastructure of thedestination application.
 2. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein the event includes one or more details of the action performedby the first application.
 3. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein the event is initially in an application-specific format, andconverting the event includes altering one or more application-specificportions of the event.
 4. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein converting the event includes changing one or moreapplication-specific portions of the event to beapplication-independent.
 5. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein the application-independent format event is published utilizinga bus.
 6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein theapplication-independent format event is broadcast on the bus.
 7. Thecomputer program product of claim 5, wherein a plurality of subscribersare associated with the bus.
 8. The computer program product of claim 7,wherein the plurality of subscribers include one or more entitiessituated between the bus and one or more applications that manage thetransfer of events between the bus and the applications.
 9. The computerprogram product of claim 7, wherein the plurality of subscribers are incommunication with the bus.
 10. The computer program product of claim 7,wherein the computer program product is operable such that one or moresubscribers listening to the bus retrieve the publishedapplication-independent format event.
 11. The computer program productof claim 1, wherein the computer program product is operable such thatthe published application-independent format event is converted by asubscriber that retrieves the event.
 12. The computer program product ofclaim 10, wherein the computer program product is operable such that theretrieved and converted event is processed by the destinationapplication.
 13. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein thebus filters one or more events and may only deliver events to one ormore predetermined subscribers.
 14. The computer program product ofclaim 1, wherein one or more subscribers retrieve the publishedapplication-independent format event and forward the event on to anotherentity.
 15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the otherentity includes another application other than the first application.16. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the publishedapplication-independent format event is converted from itsapplication-independent format to a format specific to an applicationother than the first application when the event is retrieved.
 17. Thecomputer program product of claim 1, wherein the publishedapplication-independent format event is converted into a formatunderstandable by an application that is intended to receive the event.18. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the event includesan indication of a change in a record.
 19. A method, comprising:identifying an event associated with a first application, where theevent includes a notification that the first application performed aparticular action; converting the event into an application-independentformat event, utilizing a processor; and publishing theapplication-independent format event; wherein theapplication-independent format event is converted to a format associatedwith a destination application and is forwarded on to a destinationapplication, where the application-independent format event describeschanges to be made to an application infrastructure, and where thedestination application incorporates the described changes into aninfrastructure of the destination application.
 20. An apparatus,comprising: a processor for: identifying an event associated with afirst application, where the event includes a notification that thefirst application performed a particular action; converting the eventinto an application-independent format event; and publishing theapplication-independent format event; wherein the apparatus is operablesuch that the application-independent format event is converted to aformat associated with a destination application and is forwarded on toa destination application, where the application-independent formatevent describes changes to be made to an application infrastructure, andwhere the destination application incorporates the described changesinto an infrastructure of the destination application.
 21. A method fortransmitting code for use in a multi-tenant database system on atransmission medium, the method comprising: transmitting code foridentifying an event associated with a first application, where theevent includes a notification that the first application performed aparticular action; transmitting code for converting the event into anapplication-independent format event; and transmitting code forpublishing the application-independent format event; wherein theapplication-independent format event is converted to a format associatedwith a destination application and is forwarded on to a destinationapplication, where the application-independent format event describeschanges to be made to an application infrastructure, and where thedestination application incorporates the described changes into aninfrastructure of the destination application.